After Privet Drive
by Trebleclef2
Summary: The story of the Dursleys after they leave Privet Drive, and of how their lives change. T for mild use of language.


**Author's Note:**** So, my first Harry Potter fanfic! I've been a fan for AGES but hadn't written anything for this fandom until now. The goodbye scene with the Dursleys is one of my favourites ever and I always wondered what happened to them after they leave Privet Drive. Well, this fic is very much what it says on the tin. So, enjoy reading, and please review!**

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling and Warner Bros.**

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**Chapter 1: For Lilly**

Petunia didn't look back as she walked out the door of Number Four Privet Drive for what would probably be the very last time. It was the house that she had lived in since she'd gotten married to Vernon – the house she'd tended and cleaned relentlessly, the house where she'd raised her beautiful son Dudley. It was the house where, sixteen years ago, she'd risen to find Harry Potter, her baby nephew, on her doorstep with an ugly scar on his forehead and a letter clutched in his hand, telling her that his parents were dead and that the burden of raising her sister's whelp fell on her.

This was the boy she had unwillingly raised along with her own son, hating him for existing, hating her sister for having to be a… freak. She was sure that her son would be just like her, and on the very day that she and Vernon first laid eyes on Harry they vowed that they would stamp every last bit of that kind of foolishness out of him. Their family was perfect, just she and Vernon and their son, and they had a reputation to uphold. She wouldn't have her family being seen as… abnormal like hers had been once Lily's freakishness had started to emerge.

Those first few months, whenever she looked at Harry she thought of her sister and a ball of hate started to rise inside of her. She hadn't allowed herself to mourn Lilly's passing, trying to convince herself that she'd gotten what she deserved. She'd been a freak, her and her strange husband, and it was their own fault that they'd gone and gotten themselves blown up. Nevertheless, sometimes she felt a sadness creep up on her whenever she remembered that Lilly was gone forever. They were sisters after all, however much Petunia hated the fact. She tried to shake off the grief, to mask such feelings with anger, but they still remained. That was the main reason she hated the boy – he represented all that had become between her and Lilly so long ago – the freakish abilities that had completely estranged the sisters who had once been inseparable. Although she'd never admit it aloud, it was jealousy that drove them apart – Petunia had been unable to forgive her sister for having the talents that sent Lilly away to a magical school that she loved while Petunia remained at home doing her chores and toiling over algebra and geography. Harry was a constant reminder of Petunia's inability to compete with her sister's abilities.

But hate Harry as she did, when she had said goodbye to the boy in her spotless kitchen just a moment before she had felt something more. Just for a second she felt a twinge of sorrow at leaving him there, maybe even guilt. There was a ring of finality to the moment that couldn't be ignored; like they were saying goodbye for the very last time, facing an unknown future apart. Indeed, they probably were. The night before she'd taken out the letter that had been delivered with him as a baby and re-read it for the first time in sixteen years. She's kept it, a secret from Vernon all this time – after all, it was the news of Lilly's death. Reading the neatly written words again now she couldn't miss the connection Dumbledore was inferring between the boy and the Lord Voldemort, as they called him. She couldn't miss the danger that he was in, the reason that Lilly's protective charm had been placed on him in the first place. Now, looking into Harry's eyes as she left, she saw a hardness and a toughness there; a determination. Looking into those eyes that were so much like her late sister's, Petunia knew one thing – Harry was going to fight this Lord Voldemort. And if what she had been told about the dark wizard was true, Harry was in grave danger and he knew it. She'd never really thought about how he'd reacted to the knowledge of how his parents had really died; of how it would affect him. Looking at him now, almost a grown man, alone all of his life, she knew that if anyone could defeat Lord Voldemort, it was him, spurred on by revenge and the same sense of right and justice that had been ever present in his mother.

And so, when Dudley and Vernon had gone out to the car with their guardians leaving her alone with Harry she opened her mouth momentarily to say something; anything. A good luck wish perhaps, or a thank you for protecting them. But try as she did, she couldn't think of how to begin and in the end didn't say anything, following her family out the door without a word.

At least none that anybody heard. Just as she turned the corner of their estate and caught her last glance of Harry Potter through the kitchen window, a single tear ran down her cheek. Quickly turning her face to the window so nobody would see, she surrendered herself to her emotions for a brief time, unspeaking. She didn't think that the other occupants of the car would understand.

_Good luck Harry,_ she thought._ Get that bastard, for Lilly._


End file.
